UK Special Award 2006

Special Award: Disability Excellence
Supporter: Employers' Forum on Disability
www.employers-forum.co.uk

Winner: Lehman Brothers

To establish the criteria for the Disability Excellence award, Great Place to Work^® Institute UK and the Employers' Forum on Disability identified organisations that go beyond legal compliance and successfully embed positive attitudes towards disability in their workplace culture. Employees' opinions were also incorporated, requiring that over 90 per cent of employees feel that everyone is treated fairly regardless of disability.

In satisfying these two elements, Lehman Brothers emerged as the winner of the award. Lehman Brothers’ proactive approach exceeds the award’s requirements regarding access to information, access to premises, customer service and employing disabled individuals.

Examples include forming the European Disability Working Forum, which is made up of 18 senior representatives from each of the region’s divisions, running a Disability Awareness Day in 2005 with speakers and representatives from disability partners to increase employee awareness, recruiting on external sites such as youreable.com and Employment Opportunities and training all of Lehman Brothers’ receptionists in British Sign Language.  Lehman is also a corporate member of the Employers’ Forum on Disability and took part in the first European Disability Standard benchmark survey in 2005. Lehman Brothers’ European headquarters in London has been designed to meet and exceed existing accessibility legislation as well as good practice as set out by the BSI.  They have also delivered a number of training sessions to educate staff around disability etiquette.

Most importantly, Lehman Brothers has recognised that disability confidence is a core business value and has communicated the importance of this to its employees.